Appellate Court Revives Boeing Sex Harassment
Suit

August 8, 2008 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - A federal
appellate court has breathed new life into a sexual
harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed against the Boeing
Company on behalf of a female helicopter mechanic.

An Arizona Republic news report said the 9
th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a ruling by a
federal judge in Arizona that the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which filed the suit on
behalf of Kelley Miles, had not proven its case.The suit alleged Miles was sexually harassed and was
later retaliated against while working at Boeing’s
Mesa, Arizona,Apache helicopterplant (See
EEOC Claims Harassment
At Boeing
).

Unlike U.S. District JudgePaul Rosenblatt who dismissed the suit, the appellate
panel found that there was enough evidence to allow a jury
to find Miles was harassed and retaliated against.
The 9
th
Circuit sent the case back to the lower court for
additional hearings.

Appellate judges said there were also remaining
questions of fact about whether the company took adequate
steps to deal with the reported harassment and whether it
retaliated against Miles for reporting the
problem.

According to the suit, Miles had been the subject
of repeated sexual harassment by male co-workers who
stole her tools and shook a helicopter while she was
inside in addition to using offensive and sexual language
and making physical advances.

An EEOC announcement about the appellate ruling said
the 9
th
Circuit judges found that
although Boeing terminated one offending male
employee and disciplined another, “a reasonable jury
could find that these two employees were part of a much
larger problem with respect to Miles’
treatment.”

According to the court, there was evidence that the
employee who was eventually terminated had been
transferred into Miles’s department because he had
repeatedly harassed other female employees. The court
added that evidence also existed showing that the
harassment continued even after Boeing took its initial
measures, and the company knew or should have known that
the problems were continuing.